Grab-bag

Cattle

I moved the cattle to Sprite's back pasture. I had to make a few repairs to the fence but it was not a big deal.

I waited until the end of deer season because one of Sprite's grandkids had erected a deer blind in the middle of the pasture. A bit disconcerting that he has "shooting ports" on the side facing our house. One of those things that makes you go "Hmmmm!"

The pasture is about two acres and should last them for a month. The first is scheduled to go to slaughter in late January. The guy who agreed to do the trucking expressed an  interest in buying the other outright.

Drones

Long-read on Ukraine-Russian stalemate  (A friend sent me this link)

The author discusses the situation from the standpoint of obstacles to Russia defeating the Ukrainians.

If you look at the author's article through the lens of history, the conflict looks much like the Spanish Civil War which was the scrimmage before WWII. The Spanish Civil War was the test-bed for the NAZI and USSR in the run-up to the conflict. Remember, the two were allies at the beginning of the war.

The unspoken assumption is that Putin is an independent agent but you can be sure Xi is watching every move Putin makes and the very kinetic dance between the rapidly evolving battlefield technologies.

My perception is that the technology created a standoff situation like WWI where the primary advantage was to the defender due to limited exposure to risk while the aggressor was very exposed to risk. Most anti-personnel drones have extreme range limitations due to vehicle size/range and communication links.

The Russians appear to be buying time by using artillery for area-denial (expensive but Russians have the industrial capability) while developing their own drone technologies.

Meanwhile, both sides are probing. Getting a few drone operators in forward positions to launch drones and going hunting is doable, especially if a single operator launching a $2000 drone can take out a multi-million dollar tank or a high-level officer.

Garden seeds

 

There is a variety of winter squash known as Tennessee Sweet Potato Squash and the description in many catalogs reads:

This is the tofu of squashes, as it absorbs the flavors of the food with which it is cooked. It has a very mild taste, certainly not sweet as the name might suggest. A white-and-green, pear shaped winter squash that can grow up to 12 pounds, the variety stores well and has a greenish-white flesh color. Some would recommend that its best use is for decoration only...

That description pretty much sums up my opinion of eggplant. I am willing to bet the person who wrote the snide "...decoration only..." grows at least three kinds of eggplant in their garden.

From a production standpoint, TSPS is a bulldozer of a plant. It is unstoppable. It plows through molds, mildew and insects.

The same cannot be said about eggplant in my location. The young plants get torn to pieces by flea-beetles.

Scalability

One of the recurring themes in my writing are the challenges of "scalability".

When presented with a challenge in providing basic human needs, how quickly can:

• More shelter be created or other resources be repurposed
• More food be grown
• More water be found and transported
• More perimeter be hardened or secured

One of the defining features of  "modern organization" is that the ability to scale has been diminished by an order-of-magnitude. Environmental studies must be performed, submitted and accepted. Supply chains increased in length. Property is more fragmented and more difficult to purchase. More "stakeholders" have been identified that must approve of plans. New features squeezed into the product in the 11th hour...

"There comes a time when the engineers must be shot and production started." -Plato

One place where I think my writing has value is that they attempt to capture the seasonal tempo. Depending on where you live, there will be times of the year when you cannot throw a tomato seed into the ground and expect to get a crop.

Telegraphing

Steven Fink wrote a book titled Crisis Management. In the book, he stated that he believed nearly all "Crisis Events" telegraph their arrival in advance. Fink used the chemical spill in Bhopal, India as his central case-study. There were over 100 written reports of the cleaning crews leaving containment valves in the wrong position (i.e. open). Then, one day five of them were left open in a pattern that allowed methyl-isocyanate, one of the precursor chemicals they used, to escape to open air. 3800 people died and another half-million sustained some degree of injury.

Things can fall apart with breath-taking speed. Consider the difference between March 15, 2020 and April 1, 2020 and "Fifteen days to slow the spread"? We went from living life normally to wondering if the grocery store was going to be open.

I think one of the major lesson from Covid was the interplay of vested interests that magnified reactions the way the bumpers in a pinball machine accelerate the speed of the ball. The proximal cause was a trigger, not the main driver.

We certainly have plenty of triggers. Malicious actors are detonating smoke-bombs in public places like malls. Trial runs for other kinds of bombs? Authorities seem to be frozen-in-place, unable to respond, like birds hypnotized by snakes.

Key points:

• Preps are a bridge to keep you alive until you have sustainable production systems in place.
• Scalability and "time-to-double" production are things you should pay attention to. 
• Natural systems have a cadence and seasons that we often overlook. Our amnesia is possible because of inexpensive energy (refrigeration, transportation). Some vegetables that are very productive have very short shelf-lives (lettuce, green peas). Others might not be your favorite food but they are equally or more productive and can be stored as simply as piling them on a high spot in your garden and shoveling dirt over them. Guess which one will feed you if things get sporty?
• If things get dicey, always carry a few bags with you. They can be the disposable, plastic grocery bags. If you pay attention, there are often things worth scrounging (black raspberries, gooseberries, wind-fall apples, black walnuts, cattails, reusable containers, scrap metal). Be ready to take advantage if God throws something in your path that you might need.